The Daily News subscribers get full access to more than13
million names and addresses along with powerful search and download features.
Get the business leads you need with powerful searches of public records and notices.
Download listings into your spreadsheet or database.

A Belz-owned shopping center in southeast Memphis has been purchased by a longtime tenant in a multimillion-dollar deal.

Gestalt Community Schools, a charter school organization, purchased the Mendenhall Square Shopping Center, located on the northeast corner of Mendenhall and Winchester roads, from Belz for $8.9 million.

The new owners of the Gibson Guitar Factory building in Downtown Memphis have partnered with a prominent local family to bring the prime parcel of land back to life.

On Monday, April 30, New York-based real estate investment firm Somera Road Inc., which purchased the 150,000-plus-square-foot building and showroom located at 145 Lt. George W. Lee Ave. for $14.4 million in January, announced it would be partnering with Billy and Benjamin Orgel’s Orgel Family LP to redevelop the guitar factory.

Van Turner Sr. celebrated his 73rd birthday Wednesday, Dec. 20, as his son, county commissioner Van Turner Jr., was somewhere near the epicenter of the most significant chapter of the city’s long-running controversy over Confederate monuments.

Michael T. Goodin has joined Hagwood Adelman Tipton PC as managing attorney of the Memphis office. In that role, he provides legal services to HAT’s clients in matters such as medical malpractice and senior housing litigation for health care providers along the continuum of care, including skilled nursing, assisted living, behavioral health, home health and hospice litigation. In addition, he assists in supervising the attorney and paraprofessional teams.

For the past 90 years, Crosstown has seen its share of ups and downs. In the beginning, it was a shining beacon for the city’s eastward expansion; at its height, it anchored several vibrant and diverse neighborhoods; and at its lowest, Crosstown became the poster child for once-great inner-city areas of Memphis that had deteriorated.

In this week’s Real Estate Recap, an 18-acre shopping center in the heart of Bartlett sells for $28.8 million, Ulta Beauty prepares to build out its space in Poplar Commons, and Dave & Buster’s continues work on its first Memphis location...

The old firehouse at the corner of B.B. King Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue has gone through many incarnations since the 1800s, including stints as a recording studio, nightclub and pop-up beer garden.

The old firehouse at the corner of Linden Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue has gone through many incarnations since the 1800s, including stints as a recording studio, nightclub and pop-up beer garden.

It's Monday, Memphis – time to peek at this week's (very busy) dance card, from the opening of Graceland's $45 million entertainment complex to a showcase of the latest high-tech ag innovations to a celebration of some local "hidden figures." Check out what else you need to know about in The Week Ahead...

Penelope Huston has joined the Downtown Memphis Commission as vice president of marketing, communications and events. Huston has more than 20 years’ experience in advertising, marketing, public relations, and relationship management, most recently serving as director of marketing for Memphis in May. In her new role, she will be responsible for developing the DMC’s marketing strategy; driving activities to enhance the image of Downtown and public awareness of its growth and value to the region; and lead initiatives to position Downtown as a center for culture, tourism, business and entertainment.

City Hall’s effort to improve the level of business Memphis does with minority-owned firms has to meet up with the broader local effort to improve the growth of minority businesses in private, business-to-business contracts, says one of the leaders of the 2-year-old renewed push on both fronts.

The city’s riverfront will be a very busy place Saturday with several events – the one getting the most attention is the opening of the Big River Crossing – the bicycle and pedestrian boardwalk across the Mississippi River on the north side of the Harahan Bridge.

Rodney Strong, CEO of the Atlanta law and public policy firm Griffin and Strong that authored city government’s latest disparity study on minority contracting, didn’t come to talk about the study last week when he spoke to a room of 40 African-American civic and business leaders.

In an effort to increase transparency in public spending, The city of Memphis will put department heads in conversation with minority- and women-owned businesses as part of the inaugural We Mean Business symposium.

The Memphis City Council is the latest group to address the disparity of business secured by women- and minority-owned businesses in the city and county.

On March 14, the MWBE Taskforce held its inaugural meeting. Organized by council member Janis Fullilove, it will propose realistic and and sustainable approaches that the city could take to increase the participation of MWBEs.

The state of Tennessee did $400 million in business with minority- and women-owned businesses in 2015. It’s a share local minority business and civic leaders judge as a good number, considering the state spends $2.5 billion in contracts a year.

There’s a major problem in Memphis when it comes to minorities: African-Americans make up 63 percent of the population but garner less than 1 percent of total business receipts within Memphis, according to the most recent U.S. Census data.

The field is set for an upcoming televised Memphis mayoral debate scheduled for the eve of early voting.

The four mayoral contenders who will participate in the Sept. 17 debate, sponsored by The Daily News and Urban Land Institute Memphis, are incumbent Mayor A C Wharton, city council members Harold Collins and Jim Strickland and Memphis Police Association president Mike Williams.

A new nonprofit group working on criminal justice issues is seeking an executive director and forming its board of directors.

Just City was founded earlier this year specifically to advocate for due process issues in the local criminal justice system and to promote solutions to the issues of mass incarceration outside the criminal justice system.

Moving the needle on minority business growth in Memphis is in a phase of knitting and prodding six months after a renewed call for a larger share of business for minority businesses in a city whose population is majority African-American.

The little Memphis pizzeria that could will soon be opening a new location in Jackson, Tenn.

The Rock’n Dough Pizza Co., owned by Jeremy and Amanda Denno, is slated to open a new restaurant and microbrewery at the Jackson Walk development in Jackson in October. The Dennos will team up with veteran local brewer Ben Pugh to create signature suds at the 4,100-square-foot restaurant.

The Greater Memphis Chamber has promoted Amy Daniels to the newly created position of senior vice president, membership and communications. Daniels, who has worked at the chamber for 17 years, will now oversee the membership department while continuing in her prior role, leading the communications and programming department.

Rick Masson has joined Caissa Public Strategy as senior director. Masson, former chief administrative office for the city of Memphis, was also recently named special master to oversee the city-county schools merger. (For details, see the Monday, March 11, edition of The Daily News.) In his new role at Caissa, Masson will provide consultation and leadership on business development and project management.

By the time Crosstown Arts occupies space in the 1.5 million-square-foot Sears Crosstown building, it will have completed a solid test run of promoting arts-based community and economic development in Midtown.

February’s mixed bag of commercial real estate sales serve as evidence of the sluggish speculative market, which doesn’t appear to be staging a comeback in the foreseeable future.

Shelby County saw 48 CRE sales last month, a 41 percent increase from 34 sales in February 2010, but also a 16 percent decrease from 57 in January, according to the latest information from real estate information company Chandler Reports, www.chandlerreports.com.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division should have 10 locations up and running by September for public charging stations for electric vehicles.

And Tennesseans who buy a Nissan Leaf, the all-electric vehicle coming to the market in 2012, will get a free home charging station as part of federal government incentives in six states and Washington as well as state government incentives in Tennessee.

The Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division board is scheduled to take action on a resolution at Thursday’s meeting awarding a $156,034 contract to Venture Technologies for an e-mail system upgrade.

The board also is scheduled to consider a resolution authorizing the utility company to extend an interdivisional cooperative agreement with the city of Memphis to buy unleaded and low sulfur diesel fuel.

Consolidating the Memphis and Shelby County public school systems is off the table as far as the Metro Charter Commission is concerned.

In its first vote on a charter issue since forming in October, the body voted unanimously last week to exclude the school systems from the charter or any charter discussions. The exclusion does not apply to the charter commission’s coming talks about how both school systems would be funded by one local government.

Memphis Mayor-elect A C Wharton Jr. will be appointing a new city attorney once he takes office next week.

Elbert Jefferson, the city attorney Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery tried to fire just minutes after taking the oath of office on July 31, Friday sent a second resignation letter to Lowery. The two met for an hour Sunday evening at City Hall and Lowery accepted Jefferson’s resignation.

Jefferson’s attorney, Ted Hansom, and city Chief Administrative Officer Jack Sammons were also present. Jefferson turned in his key card, the keys to his city car and his laptop.

“The drama is over,” Lowery said Monday. “For my part, I wish it had never happened.”

Dramatis personae

In a resignation letter last week to Wharton, Jefferson had expressed hope that he would be hired for some position in the new administration. Over the weekend, he used the same text in the new letter but addressed it to Lowery instead. He requested the city pay his legal fees as well.

The resignation letter to Lowery made moot an ouster suit filed by Shelby County District Attorney General Bill Gibbons. Criminal Court Judge James Lammey, who was to hear the case, reset a final report to Oct. 27, citing Jefferson’s departure.

“A hearing on the issue of suspension would be an inefficient use of judicial resources, of the state of Tennessee and of the resources of the city of Memphis, and considering (Jefferson’s) current health status, would be an unnecessary tax on (Jefferson’s) well-being and a possible threat to his health,” Lammey wrote in the court order.

Jefferson was scheduled to return to City Hall from sick leave Monday. He apparently believed the new mayor would be in office by the time he returned.

An audit of city financial affairs is standard procedure in a change of administrations. Wharton is naming team members to review the offices of the city attorney, human resources and finance and administration. He was also to name members of his transition team Monday.

Time-, battle-tested

Shelby County Commissioner Mike Carpenter and Methodist Healthcare executive Cato Johnson will head the team.

Johnson has more experience serving on such task forces and ad hoc committees than any other leader in the city’s corporate community. Most recently, Johnson was one of two business leaders on the ad hoc committee exploring single-source local funding for education. He also served as a leader of the Mid-South Fairgrounds renovation committee and has been involved in similar capacities with every major construction project for a civic use in the past 15 years.

Carpenter’s appointment is certain to fuel speculation that he might be tapped for some role in the new administration. However, Carpenter has already been holding fundraisers in anticipation of a bid for re-election to his commission seat in the 2010 county elections.

Wharton is tentatively scheduled to take the oath of office Oct. 26.

The Shelby County Commission also meets that same day and could receive Wharton’s resignation and declare a vacancy in the county mayor’s office with a vote to appoint Wharton’s successor-to-come in November. Until that vote, County Commission Chairwoman Joyce Avery will serve as interim mayor.

“It will be a day in which I come to work at one place and leave work from another place,” Wharton told The Daily News.

But the Shelby County Election Commission will meet earlier than expected -- Thursday afternoon -- to certify the Oct. 15 election results. Once the results are certified, Wharton is free to resign as Shelby County mayor and take the oath as Memphis mayor.

Cooperative efforts

Meanwhile, Wharton has asked City Council Chairman Harold Collins to consider delaying a council vote today on the five appointees the city mayor is to make to a metro charter commission. The council set today’s vote with the intention of having whomever won the Oct. 15 special election appoint members of the panel.

“I won’t be there on the 20th. … I’m seeing if they are in a position to put it off until I’m actually over there,” Wharton told The Daily News, as he has had attorneys researching if a council vote in November would meet timelines for such an effort set out in state law.

“I believe that they may be able to meet on Nov. 3,” Wharton said.

Wharton has already named the 10 appointees to be made by the Shelby County mayor to the panel. The County Commission approved all 10 earlier this month.

While it appears he will make the other five, Wharton said he will ask the council, through Collins, to effectively pick the five nominees, whom Wharton would then send to the council as his appointees.

“I chose all 10 over here, which I had to do by law. If I could find some way around it that passed legal muster, then I would do that,” he said. “But we’ve researched it and I know of no way in which the city mayor can say … ‘I’m not going to do that.’ You can’t transfer it.”

Wharton and Lowery were to discuss the matter at a meeting Monday afternoon. Lowery told The Daily News he had received no suggested appointees from council members, but would be willing to submit names the council wants on the charter commission.

In other transition developments, the Shelby County Election Commission will meet Thursday afternoon to certify the results of the Oct. 15 special mayoral election.

The meeting is earlier than Wharton had expected. Once the results are certified, Wharton can resign his post as Shelby County mayor at any point and take the oath of office at City Hall. The Shelby County Commission will then declare a vacancy in the county mayor’s office and commission chairwoman Joyce Avery will become acting mayor until the commission appoints someone to serve the year remaining in Wharton’s county term of office.

Like it was for hundreds of other Memphians, April 3 proved to be a watershed date for Terica Lamb. She lost her job at FedEx Express that day when the company laid off 1,000 salaried managers and professionals, half of whom came from the Memphis area.

Low-income customers of Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division eventually could see some relief in the form of lower utility bills if an ordinance the Memphis City Council will discuss Tuesday is approved.

Commercial real estate’s downward spiral continued in October, with sales falling by a third compared to the same month a year ago.

Just 64 commercial deals occurred in Shelby County last month, a 33.3 percent decline from 96 in October 2007, according to the latest data from real estate information company Chandler Reports, www.chandlerreports.com.

Two generations ago, Darrell Cobbins’ grandfather developed one of Memphis’ first black middle-income communities called Lakeview Gardens.

Over the next couple of years, Cobbins, a commercial real estate developer and broker, will bring a 133-unit senior housing facility to Binghampton, and he’ll pay homage to his real estate lineage by calling it Lakeview Estates.

Dr. Vasili Lendel has joined Memphis Heart Clinic. Lendel is board certified in internal medicine and cardiology. A native of Siberia, Lendel received the Russian Government Award for Academic Excellence. He did his cardiology fellowship at Penn State's medical center in Hershey, Penn., where he received the Chief Cardiology Fellow award.

The nation's residential housing market may be sinking, but commercial real estate in Memphis has remained afloat.

The city's office sector received a positive checkup for the second quarter of the year as outlined in "2Q 2007 Memphis Office MarketView Report," released this month by the local office of CB Richard Ellis (CBRE).

Greg Bethel has been named vice president of the board of directors of the Commission on Missing & Exploited Children (COMEC). Bethel is the director of human resources for the Jackson-Madison County School System in Jackson, Tenn. He's been on the board of directors for two years.

In the midst of guiding the development partnership he helped assemble to create what could become the largest African-American-led project ever in Downtown Memphis, Darrell Cobbins heard from an old friend recently.